Escapism
by Arien Icelight
Summary: Skill sharpened to the most blinding perfection is neither shuriken throwing–a precise and light touch of death – nor the materia hunting–innocent smile turning into wolfish grin at the sight of shining orbs.Her greatest efficiency is in running away


_**Title: **_Escapism

_**Canon: **_original game

_**Pairings: **_Vincent Valentine/Yuffie Kisaragi

_**Rating: **_K+

_**Warnings: **_if angst counts.

_**Summary: **_Yuffie's greatest efficiency is in running away.

_**Spoilers: **_for the Wutai scene in game.

Special gratitude to Rachel Winters (Orodruin) for beta-reading this.

Yuffie feels her blood turning into pure adrenaline; a white hot rush pulsing through her veins, making her movements erratic and _faster-faster-faster_. Her small heart is like a caged bird – a caged bird (what she feared the most) pounding hysterically, trying to jump out but getting caught in her dry, constricted throat. Her shoulders are those of a young girl with a weight too much for a grown woman upon them; they are aching so badly, far worse than the thin scratches all over her body. Yuffie hisses through gritted teeth as the branches lash her yet again, almost cruelly, but she leaps forward, never stopping, not even flinching. Materia suddenly seems heavier than ever before, maybe because she hasn't ever held this much, maybe because its weight is doubled by guilt. She doesn't know, she doesn't want to know – it doesn't even matter. (_Liar, _she hears her heart whispering, _It shouldn't matter but it does.) _

And so she never stops running, ragged breath hitching, familiar Wutaian forest turning into a green blur before her _not_ tear-shielded vision. Yuffie is as fast as the wind, leaving all self-reproach behind and breaking free (except she can't really) for several blissful moments, trying to ignore the aftertaste of fear for what she will feel when the gates of Wutai part her and her deceived (not) friends.

***

Yuffie Kisaragi is good at many things. She's the single greatest ninja – hands on hips, dancing around; so childish, yet she is anything but a child. But the skill sharpened to the most blinding perfection is neither shuriken throwing – a precise and light touch of death – nor the materia hunting – innocent smile turning into wolfish grin at the sight of shining orbs. Her greatest efficiency is in running away.

The chase continues all her life.

When Yuffie was little she skipped the rope-escape lessons because she wasn't perfect and etiquette because she was awful. (And was it possible to care less?) She left the borders of her country for she could do nothing to stop the decay from within, so she kept on trying and trying and trying from outside. She betrayed her comrades as the space they held in her heart grew dangerously large, as their rank in her list of priorities crept too close to the top, she felt the ties of affection binding her securely. Yuffie was afraid of letting her freedom go, of bottling up the wanderlust, of letting her country down because she was distracted by others. Of falling in love, because it all seemed suspiciously like failure. She inherited not the empty title of princess, but the will of Wutai and its pride – pride that was much bigger than her small form and made her flee at the tiniest sparkles of fiasco. She is one step faster, but its ghost always behind her back, making her sleep guarded, adding the metallic taste of fear to her food, urging her to look around every several minutes, which she masks under exuberance. Because she couldn't afford to lose – and the only way to avoid it was to elude the battles that couldn't be won.

However, sitting on the mockingly stiff mattress in the guest room ('you are a sad excuse for a daughter, just like for a princess' kept echoing like a damaged record in her damaged mind), keeping her usually loud mouth shut and avoiding eyes of others (mako and crimson, crimson, crimson, she couldn't take the burning reproach in it) Yuffie thought that failure had finally caught up with her. Something slipped past her defenses, crawled under her skin, entangled with her thoughts too much to divide without killing herself (and she couldn't, she was always a vessel of life itself). This _escapade _happened too late, becoming a pain instead of salvation. She ruined everything – friendship, trust, love – just because she was a little, insecure girl too afraid to accept it. Only she didn't notice she lost the key to exit before blowing up the building she was in.

Slim hand tightens over battered knees in a vain attempt to sooth the icy burning in a chest too heavy to breathe, but it only feels like the smithereens of this something she so indignantly threw away go deeper. They cut to the core through her skin, not soft and pleasant to touch after rough journeys (who would want to touch you, you filthy traitorous klepto, she hears somebody saying in a voice so alike to her own). The movement brings two pairs of eyes to her, and Yuffie stills like the stone she wishes she could become at the moment, almost feeling the distrusting glance washing over her beaten black and blue body. She remembers rushing into the heat of a fight at pagoda hoping to melt down the chilling guilt she felt at the one word Vincent Valentine cared to mutter to the girl stripped of her materia, her dignity and her knowledge of _whadIfreakin'donow?_ – inexcusable.

Inexcusable.

This whisper rang in her ears louder than her father's yelling, rang as she tried to drown the bitterness in the sweetness of victory (_so futile_, her pride reminded), rang as she fought for her breath on the cold floor and as she was carried to this room by the servants. She didn't want their touches. She didn't want anybody to touch what was a walking – well, technically, limp – wound of shattered ambitions. There were times – decades ago in mind, days ago in reality – when she was injured in one of their countless battles, dead tired, badly needing cure and gods know what it took her to manage her traditional _We showed'em_! In moments like these Yuffie never really protested about unconsciously caring hands, one of them of a cruel deadly metal, that held her when she stumbled and began absolutely ungracefully falling down, brought her to tent, passed her healing materia. It didn't feel like failure, because even if she almost lost the battle (which doesn't really count, duh), it felt like winning a war by obtaining something so valuable she has never stolen before. The girl-woman (for she is a child-adult in the depth of her unsteady soul) remembers falling down without a drop of energy on the indifferent floor, watching a man in crimson, which is just a fabric, not blood, as he thinks it is metaphorically - so stupid – doesn't make a move to catch the falling princess, the fallen grace. Her bruises have never hurt this much.

_Inexcusable_, she whispers to herself, head turned to the uncaring night outside of the window, unaware that the intent gaze caught the sight of her lips moving, making this self-reproaching sigh-word seasoned by the salt of tears that the young girl tried to fight back – in the most bitter vain Vincent has ever seen .

Self-loathing is all too recognizable to his eyes, and though the rage of betrayal still boils in his veins, he muses that the shadow of guilt on the thin lines of the pale face doesn't suit the White Rose of Wutai – just as running away from fears – that's his path.

He thinks this way days after, when Yuffie is with them yet again, though it feels like she isn't, sitting away from the campfire, not dancing around with sparkles of light, presumably because they can't find their echo in her dull eyes anymore. When Cloud leaves to take care of chocobos and girl doesn't comment on the reason being blood ties (poor boy tried to do something about his hair, but nothing helped, and she was always cruel about it), Vincent wants to leave too. He cherishes silence, which had been a rare occurrence before, but it is heavy and deafening now, urging him to leave this place and escape somewhere, where there are no people who wake up the tingling confusion - to do what she did. He should have understood, he thinks, especially considering that Yuffie's reasons were not purely selfish. But instead of understanding, he practically shot her with one simple word that was still lying in the depth of her eyes and pouring poison in her blood.

Vincent makes a tiny movement towards her, not entirely sure he will say something (he isn't good with words, they are slippery and traitorous for him) and he doesn't want to admit that he cares, because he shouldn't, he should concentrate on atoning for his sins, should-…

Yuffie's head snaps, short waves of chocolate magically turned into silk washing over her face, and her eyes suddenly are one of the most heartbreaking, heart-tearing, heart-stopping, heart-… _he is no good with words_ - views he has ever seen. They are wide and scared and so guilty he feels like she stabbed him with her sharpest shuriken. Cankerous tears on trembling lashes that mirror her pulse – nervous, erratic – are like drops of scorching metal on the heart that she managed to bare, her stealth skills overpowering his surrendering defenses once again. She pulls her knees closer and the grimace of tearing pain is disturbingly evident, like she expects him to hit her – blood leaves his face, he would never, even a monster like him couldn't, wouldn't – and then the thick silence is torn apart.

"I'm so-… so sorry."

Vincent feels his blood freeze at the sound of quiet sobs ringing in his ears like a thunderstorm in the heart that was not supposed to be feeling this. He shouldn't care; people he cares about are doomed to suffer, he shouldn't let her care – all late, too late. He should say he forgives her while not really doing so, not really letting her in again – it was so cold inside as she first ran in, then ran out, leaving the door hang open for feelings to be buried. But the desperate _so sorry, sorry, so… I'm so sorry, Vincent, so-… _in a delicate voice is in reality a brute force that pushes him over the edge, sweeps the borders and

"It's fine now, Yuffie."

Her hiccups of a woman drunken with guilt turn into the avalanche of bitter tears and words he can't really catch, so he just repeats _It's fine now, _because it is.

Hour passes, and Yuffie, eyes almost as red as Vincent's, weakly wonders if chocobos actually ate Cloud alive. She is tired, so tired, but calming forgiveness envelops her shivering form and dries her tears. It has a red cape she is wrapping herself in now and consciously caring hands, one of them of cruel deadly metal, that gather the pieces of that something which cut her small heart.

"I understand now," she says, voice unusually serious, sweet sound of stream "escapism is not always an option, right, Vince?"

"Yes," Vincent murmurs after a long pause, agreeing to turn his life head over heels, "yes, it is not."

She feels her heart singing like a bird caged in fear and insecurity never could, and she hopes the silent man near her (she has never let anybody so close) hears it, too.

Yuffie doesn't know if she can win this battle, but evading it is a failure that she can't afford.


End file.
